Becoming a Liberal or Liberal Democrat MP used to have one great consolation. If you held your seat for any length of time you automatically became a minor celebrity.

Some, such as John Pardoe and David Steel, the media treated as serious politicians. Others, like Cyril Smith and Clement Freud, were regarded as characters. Even the most transient byelection victor enjoyed one party conference as the centre of everyone's attention.

Times have changed. A year ago 14 new Liberal Democrat MPs were elected. Joining a parliamentary party 52 strong (now 53 with the defection of Paul Marsden), they have found that fame no longer comes so easily.

A few have contrived to stand out through appearance or ambition. John Thurso, grandson of the wartime Liberal leader Sir Archibald Sinclair, was unique from the start. He was elected to the Commons after sitting in the Lords as an hereditary peer.

What has really distinguished him, though, is his sleek black hair and luxuriant moustache. These features lend him a pronounced resemblance to Lord Lucan. (Tony Banks unkindly suggested that he had done well to choose the obscurity of the Liberal Democrat benches.) There's nothing in it, of course, but Mr Thurso's far-flung Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency would be an ideal place to lie low.

David Laws has been prominent on the free market side in the party's debates on the future of public services. Before reaching Westminster he worked in banking, becoming managing director of Barclays de Zoete Wedd before he was 30.

Young, rich, successful: it ought to be enough to win him the enmity of all reasonable people. But he seems popular enough in Yeovil, where he inherited most of Paddy Ashdown's majority.

These exotics are not typical of the new intake. More representative are the three women among them: Annette Brooke from Mid Dorset and North Poole, Patsy Calton from Cheadle and Sue Doughty from Guildford. All are serious local politicians, and Ms Brooke and Ms Calton are also councillors. Yet none is identified with the place she represents in a way that almost transcends party politics, as Cyril Smith was in Rochdale.

Instead they declare enthusiasms such as curbside paper collection, library reorganisation and concessionary bus fares. This makes them strong candidates, even if you would not raise the subjects if you found yourself next to one of the three at dinner.

And they have political nous. Ms Doughty's website says that she strongly opposes large scale incineration for Guildford. In the contest last June, when she won by only 538 votes, her Conservative opponent's pledge to burn the town down may well have cost him the seat.

Elsewhere life is gentler. In Argyll and Bute Alan Reid puts out press releases about the Campbelltown ferry and Dunoon pier, though it was his counterpart at Holyrood who issued the immortal "Introduction of beavers a waste of public money".

Other members with rural seats have also been busy. Norman Lamb from North Norfolk has campaigned on insurance cover for lifeboat crews, and Richard Younger Ross from Teignbridge has initiated debates on the dangers of ragwort and the problems of small brewers.

On the Welsh border local connections are strong. Roger Williams, who stepped into Richard Livesey's wellies in Brecon and Radnor, is a past chairman of the counties' NFU branch and the Brecon Beacons national park. And the family of Ludlow's Matthew Green owned the Shropshire county magazine for many years. His mother still writes its social diary.

You can try too hard. In Edinburgh West John Barret is a member of the advisory board of the city's film festival, which is reasonable. But up in Orkney and Shetland, Alistair Carmichael's earlier career reads like a cross between Local Hero and The Tales of Para Handy. His education took in Port Ellen primary school and Islay high school. He worked as both a procurator fiscal depute and a hotel manager. He is even a notably youthful Elder of the Church of Scotland.

Perhaps it is the burden of being the only Liberal Democrat MP with two Liberal predecessors -- Jo Grimond and Jim Wallace. Or perhaps life up there really is like that.

John Pugh from Southport and Paul Holmes from Chesterfield provide the glue that holds this disparate group together. They are prime movers of the Beveridge group, which has won the support of a majority of new MPs. Launched last year, it is intended to rally support for higher spending on public services. It is strong on the need for a public service ethos, but exudes a faint whiff of corduroy and the 1970s.

So there you have the new Liberal Democrat MPs. In many ways the lack of traditional characters reflects the party's new standing. A survey of new Conservative or Labour MPs would turn up similar people.

Besides, is it advisable for a new MP to come to early notice? The career of the best-known figure in the Liberal Democrats' 1997 intake suggests not. It was inevitable that Jackie Ballard would have a high profile in a party with so few prominent women, but she even stood for the leadership after only two years in the Commons.

Come the 2001 election, her principled stand against hunting was enough to rally the opposition in Taunton and she lost her seat. After the election she complained that Exmoor was a feudal society and went to live in Iran.